Texan oil giant Anadarko exits NZ
Texan oil giant Anadarko is poised to leave New Zealand, dropping its final exploration permit and closing its local operations.
It is the latest major explorer to end operations in New Zealand.
The move comes amid calls for the Government to end oil exploration. Already the new Labour-led coalition is refusing to commit to offering new blocks for exploration beyond the current round.
While it has not drilled in several years, in the summer of 2013-14 Anadarko spent about $300 million on two wells off the coast of Taranaki and Canterbury. Both came up dry.
Since then global oil prices have plunged, as has the amount of exploration in New Zealand.
Alan Seay, who has headed Anadarko’s New Zealand office since 2011, said the Houston-headquartered company had informed its partners in its remaining permit, in the Canterbury Basin off the coast of Oamaru, that it wanted to resign as the operator and was leaving New Zealand.
‘‘It’s all down to the continuing low oil price. Ourselves and other explorers are having to make some tough decisions about where we invest capital and frontier areas like New Zealand are always going to struggle in an environment like that,’’ Seay said.
The move was not a reflection of Anadarko’s views of New Zealand’s prospects for oil and gas.
‘‘Reluctantly we’ve made the decision that New Zealand competes with other opportunities in our international portfolio and so we’re leaving,’’ Seay said.
The process was likely to take several months. Seay, who is a board member of industry lobby group PEPANZ, would leave the company as part of the exit.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised the possibility that the 2017 block offer could be the last, and Energy Minister Megan Woods said whether there would be new permits issued was still to be resolved by a Government seeking to develop a transition to renewable energy.
‘‘This is just part of the normal investment cycles from oil companies around the world; they come in and out of areas,’’ Woods said of Anadarko’s exit.
Woods said New Zealand had a number of existing permits, and appeared to indicate there may need to be more drilling for gas, which could lead to new oil extraction.
‘‘Gas is going to be an important part of our transition … that is an important fuel as we transition to renewables. They [oil companies] usually don’t come looking for one without the other.’’
Greenpeace is celebrating the company’s departure, calling on the Govern- ment to ‘‘administer the coup de graˆce to the oil industry’’.
‘‘There is no future in oil and it’s time for our new Government to dump oil exploration and drilling in New Zealand. We can’t afford to burn most of the fossil fuel reserves we know about if we’re to stabilise our climate – searching for more makes no sense,’’ Greenpeace climate campaigner Kate Simcock said.
Anadarko became a byword for protest against the industry, after an amendment to the Crown Minerals Act in 2013 that limited protest at sea was dubbed the ‘‘Anadarko amendment’’.
In April, Greenpeace New Zealand executive director and former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman became the first person to be charged under the legislation, after he and two other protesters jumped into the sea off the Wairarapa coast in front of the Amazon Warrior, which was undertaking seismic testing.